What do old tannoy monitors sound like

[rob aylestone]

I'm going to PLASA in London next week - as part of the exhibition, they've put together a collection of old lighting and sound gear - and are calling it 'Classic'.

• Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon sound system from 1973
  
• The Beatles' Abbey Road Altec monitor speakers from the 1960s
  
• David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust tour equipment from 1973
  
• Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells Midas mixing desk from 1973
  
• The Who's Live Aid bass set up from 1985
  
• Vari-Lite's Artisan control console with VL2 and VL4 moving lights
  
• Strand's MMS memory lighting control from 1973 and the Patt 23 baby spotlight from 1950
  
• Cadac's first theatre mixing desk from 1983

I'm doing stand duty on Monday, but I really want to look at the Abbey Road monitors. 1973 was when I was in my last year at school - so some things are even older than me!

 

[panax_27]

Why wouldn’t you want to accurately hear the source material??

It would be nice to hear out of my monitors exactly what was recorded. No frequency boosted or cut by the speakers themselves.


You still have the room to contend with, but that’s a whole other story.

100 percent flat though? so when you get those flat speakers to sound nice and girthy souding someone listens to crappy muddy speakers and it will sound like a mess...

 

[panax_27]

I'm going to PLASA in London next week - as part of the exhibition, they've put together a collection of old lighting and sound gear - and are calling it 'Classic'.

• Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon sound system from 1973
• The Beatles' Abbey Road Altec monitor speakers from the 1960s
• David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust tour equipment from 1973
• Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells Midas mixing desk from 1973
• The Who's Live Aid bass set up from 1985
• Vari-Lite's Artisan control console with VL2 and VL4 moving lights
• Strand's MMS memory lighting control from 1973 and the Patt 23 baby spotlight from 1950
• Cadac's first theatre mixing desk from 1983

I'm doing stand duty on Monday, but I really want to look at the Abbey Road monitors. 1973 was when I was in my last year at school - so some things are even older than me!

very cool intrested in learning about those altecs too

 

[TalismanRich]

100 percent flat though? so when you get those flat speakers to sound nice and girthy souding someone listens to crappy muddy speakers and it will sound like a mess...

That's like saying to you could do good photo editing on a monitor where the green level is off by 20%. It's simply wrong. There's a reason that cameras do white balance, and they make 18% gray cards to set your color balance and exposure.

What someone puts their music through later can be complete rubbish, but you have no control over that. If they like having 1000 watt subs that pump up the bass. that's fine, but you should not penalize all other listeners by pumping up the bass or boosting all the highs because your control monitors have no bass and or highs, just midrange. They should be full range and neutral as much as possible.

 

[TalismanRich]

Get some good photos of this stuff. I'll never have a chance to see anything like that, being in the boonies as far as the recording world goes. The closest place for me would be a trip to Nashville.

I'm going to PLASA in London next week - as part of the exhibition, they've put together a collection of old lighting and sound gear - and are calling it 'Classic'.

• Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon sound system from 1973
• The Beatles' Abbey Road Altec monitor speakers from the 1960s
• David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust tour equipment from 1973
• Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells Midas mixing desk from 1973
• The Who's Live Aid bass set up from 1985
• Vari-Lite's Artisan control console with VL2 and VL4 moving lights
• Strand's MMS memory lighting control from 1973 and the Patt 23 baby spotlight from 1950
• Cadac's first theatre mixing desk from 1983

I'm doing stand duty on Monday, but I really want to look at the Abbey Road monitors. 1973 was when I was in my last year at school - so some things are even older than me!

 

[panax_27]

That's like saying to you could do good photo editing on a monitor where the green level is off by 20%. It's simply wrong. There's a reason that cameras do white balance, and they make 18% gray cards to set your color balance and exposure.

What someone puts their music through later can be complete rubbish, but you have no control over that. If they like having 1000 watt subs that pump up the bass. that's fine, but you should not penalize all other listeners by pumping up the bass or boosting all the highs because your control monitors have no bass and or highs, just midrange. They should be full range and neutral as much as possible.

no sorry photo edit doesn't apply to translating a mix... midrange is crucial, photo editing is just colors all screens have same colors... so dont go there . nice try though. i would pump up bass or boost highs with a midrange focused speaker? no thats a rookie mistake, clean up the midrange first .bass and kick drum recording that sounds off? fix the recording, use different mic. i good monitor will expose things. a good monitor doesnt sound good, it should show you things. and in a way a midrange speaker is a flat speaker in the real world of the frequencies instraments live in... dont try to polish a turd. thats my philosophy. the auratones are far from flat and there a great tool that obviously do the job. the midrange is where all the gunk is . a flat monitor will only highlight the problem areas so much... maybe in an ideal world we could use 100 percent flat monitors but those monitors don't exist for reasons i just explained...

 

[TalismanRich]

Photo editing absolutely applies. I spent over 40 years with color reproduction, and you absolutely need to have a color reference. All screens do not have the same colors, all light sources are not the same. Having the wrong color spectrum is exactly the same as having a room with bass nodes and valleys or a speaker without some audible frequencies.

We used variable light sources to make critical judgements of certain colors, and I suppose you could say that using a hyped midrange speaker is doing the same thing, but in the end, you need to have the full spectrum of sound to know if the balance is correct. That's why you might see the NS10s, MixCubes or Focals in a studio, but behind them would be proper full range speakers. In the old days they might be JBLS or Altecs, today they would be ATCs and Genelecs and PMCs.

Unfortunately, home recordists aren't going to spend the 10, 20 or 50 grand to get the really good stuff, so we make do with what we can afford. Nor are we likely to design a room the way engineers built professional recording studios.

There's a reason that Bruno Mars isn't coming over to my basement to record his next record.

 

[RFR]

That's like saying to you could do good photo editing on a monitor where the green level is off by 20%. It's simply wrong. There's a reason that cameras do white balance, and they make 18% gray cards to set your color balance and exposure.

What someone puts their music through later can be complete rubbish, but you have no control over that. If they like having 1000 watt subs that pump up the bass. that's fine, but you should not penalize all other listeners by pumping up the bass or boosting all the highs because your control monitors have no bass and or highs, just midrange. They should be full range and neutral as much as possible.

Excellent analogy with the color balance.

 

[bouldersoundguy]

100 percent flat though? so when you get those flat speakers to sound nice and girthy souding someone listens to crappy muddy speakers and it will sound like a mess...

No. If you get your mix "girthy" sounding on your speakers that are weak in the lows (instead of using good full range monitors), it will be far more of a mess on those crappy muddy speakers, and probably pretty bad on a good system as well.

 

[panax_27]

Photo editing absolutely applies. I spent over 40 years with color reproduction, and you absolutely need to have a color reference. All screens do not have the same colors, all light sources are not the same. Having the wrong color spectrum is exactly the same as having a room with bass nodes and valleys or a speaker without some audible frequencies.

We used variable light sources to make critical judgements of certain colors, and I suppose you could say that using a hyped midrange speaker is doing the same thing, but in the end, you need to have the full spectrum of sound to know if the balance is correct. That's why you might see the NS10s, MixCubes or Focals in a studio, but behind them would be proper full range speakers. In the old days they might be JBLS or Altecs, today they would be ATCs and Genelecs and PMCs.

Unfortunately, home recordists aren't going to spend the 10, 20 or 50 grand to get the really good stuff, so we make do with what we can afford. Nor are we likely to design a room the way engineers built professional recording studios.

There's a reason that Bruno Mars isn't coming over to my basement to record his next record.

exactly thats why i went with the yamahas they do the job that im looking for specifically
i think for me a more wider range speaker with more bass and highs could be used to check things out or during mastering
the opposite of how some people say to use them

 

[panax_27]

No. If you get your mix "girthy" sounding on your speakers that are weak in the lows (instead of using good full range monitors), it will be far more of a mess on those crappy muddy speakers, and probably pretty bad on a good system as well.

no ... lower midrange gunk, but i see what your saying and i agree excpet mud to me isnt lows its lower mids mostly
if someones has some major lower mids going on a flat pair it will more likely sound like gunk on something else is what im saying

 

[rob aylestone]

Seems odd to use speakers to create effects, I’ve always used the the hear the effects I create. If you have a favourite camera lens because it is really soft and lovely for those fashion dreamy shots, you don’t leave it on all the time, and record in UHD just pointless.

 

[RFR]

no ... lower midrange gunk, but i see what your saying and i agree excpet mud to me isnt lows its lower mids mostly
if someones has some major lower mids going on a flat pair it will more likely sound like gunk on something else is what im saying

Sorry, I really don’t get your logic.

You want to hear what really is there. If the speaker is incapable of reproducing it, you can’t hear it.

 

[RFR]

.

 

[ecc83]

The recording fraternity seems to have diverged since the growth of Home Recording. In the post WW2 days, in UK at least, people like the BBC were striving to make loudspeakers that were accurate and especially gave very low colouration in the mid range. One of the best was the Quad ESL used in many record company QC rooms but it was big, and had limited SPL capability. These organizations were you see wanting speakers that made an oboe SOUND like an oboe or a piano....You get my drift! A great man in the audio field summed it up. "The Closest Approach to the Original Sound"

The desire for accuracy in the HR community seems to have waned and people justify using any old honky ***T!

One day before I get too deaf or daft for it to matter I hope to get me a pair of Focals or something of similar quality.

Dave.

 

[bouldersoundguy]

no ... lower midrange gunk, but i see what your saying and i agree excpet mud to me isnt lows its lower mids mostly
if someones has some major lower mids going on a flat pair it will more likely sound like gunk on something else is what im saying

It's not the specific frequencies. The effect of your non-flat speakers on your mix will be compounded by the effect of other speakers that sound different. If you mix on flat speakers, it's just the listener's speakers that are affecting your mix, and the listener will likely be used to how their speakers sound. If you use monitors that are flat and full range, your mix will sound great on other flat speakers and still be okay on speakers that diverge from flat in different ways.

 

[panax_27]

Sorry, I really don’t get your logic.

You want to hear what really is there. If the speaker is incapable of reproducing it, you can’t hear it

yeah exactly you want to hear where the important parts are which is mostly midrange
most trouble frequencies occupy certain territories
if you have too much extra bass and treble going on it might get in the way or distract from hearing what matters

 

[panax_27]

The recording fraternity seems to have diverged since the growth of Home Recording. In the post WW2 days, in UK at least, people like the BBC were striving to make loudspeakers that were accurate and especially gave very low colouration in the mid range. One of the best was the Quad ESL used in many record company QC rooms but it was big, and had limited SPL capability. These organizations were you see wanting speakers that made an oboe SOUND like an oboe or a piano....You get my drift! A great man in the audio field summed it up. "The Closest Approach to the Original Sound"

The desire for accuracy in the HR community seems to have waned and people justify using any old honky ***T!

One day before I get too deaf or daft for it to matter I hope to get me a pair of Focals or something of similar quality.

Dave.

i catch your drift and i definitely like history so thanks for that and i respect what they did in those days but heres the thing. things have changed a little since then becuase back then people were listening back on more balanced and accurate systems. and not only that now we have plugins with the crappiest drum sample sounds imaginable with the worst sounding midrange gunk we have guitar pickups, amps, speakers, shitty microphones bad sounding interfaces all with what? crappy midrange . were not monitoring the same things as we used to . with lets say an oboe they would masterfully place that nice clear sounding microphone carefully far away so it doesnt sound all muddy. the original sound has more to do with the microphone and how its captured more so then the monitors playing it back.

 

[panax_27]

It's not the specific frequencies. The effect of your non-flat speakers on your mix will be compounded by the effect of other speakers that sound different. If you mix on flat speakers, it's just the listener's speakers that are affecting your mix, and the listener will likely be used to how their speakers sound. If you use monitors that are flat and full range, your mix will sound great on other flat speakers and still be okay on speakers that diverge from flat in different ways.

i think full range speakers sometimes get in the way and actually in a way full frequencies arent accurate because they give extra extension that gets in the way of the fundamental midrange bass and high frequencies. for example too much sub bass or screaching highs no one owns systems that portray that hardly these days. whats the one thing everyone hears on all systems ? midrange. how full do you want your frequencies response to be till it gets in the way of hearing what matters most? i dont think a 100 percent flat montor actually exists anyways. i hear you though and maybe when i read back ill be more understanding but for now the biggest problem i hear today in recordings is the midrange. it has no defintion its not clear its cloudy sounding and i dont like it.

 

[rob aylestone]

I just cannot relate to any of this. All this stuff is so skewed from anything I'd call quality, I'm lost.

If you are into music for video or movies, or want to do aby kind of more than stereo, then people like Dolby lay down very specific criteria for monitoring systems, and these rooms always sound neutral, flat and really, really capable of accuracy and truthful reproduction.

I work a lot with show music, classical music and choral stuff and if you record somebody with an antique instrument, or something really special, your recording really must sound realistic. The big movie studios know their carefully crafted and balanced mixes get played back in certified movie theatres and cinemas, but also get streamed and listened to on all kinds of devices. They spend a fortune recording things huge numbers of listeners never even notice. I simply don;t recognise this muddy mids thing we're talking about here. If the mid range is muddy and indistinct, which is what I think you mean, then your mix put too much in the mids where they all fought with each other.

Theres another thing - tired ears. Full range, truthful and neutral speakers allow longer exposure before you start to get tired and lose acuity. Small speakers can be more tiring. I hate the small Genelecs that are so common in OB trucks. A pair of them, close in, sound pretty good, but after a few hours, your ears have got used to the way they sound and you start to make less good decisions.

The Quad electrostatics were truly amazing sounding speakers - brilliant for classical and choral music. You really felt like you were in the room, but they were impossible to use with pop music, or even jazz with a double bass - they'd fart and crack horribly.

I found a couple of old recordings, made on NS10s, and in fairness, they've not actually made the recording strange that I can tell, but the tracks probably had very little bottom end anyway.

Panax said

i think full range speakers sometimes get in the way and actually in a way full frequencies arent accurate because they give extra extension that gets in the way of the fundamental midrange bass and high frequencies.

Full frequencies aren't accurate? Surely that's reversed. You can put a bass truthful speaker system on a flute, or something that struggles below 60Hz - but how about a 5 string bass twanging the open B - what would the bandwidth limited speaker do? Try to reproduce the note it can't? Can you imagine how the flute would sound with a dinky driver doing it's best to manage that B, and do the flute at the same time. I struggle with subs in a recording situation. I know many people add a sub, but despite not being able to localise bass, I suspect most people do detect it is coming from a different place in the room.